EU States vote for a controversial Reform of copyright law

The controversial Reform of the EU copyright rules has taken another hurdle. The EU member States confirmed on Wednesday the majority of the recently negotiators achieved agreement with the European Parliament, as you told. Germany also voted in favour, as it was called according to EU diplomats. The Reform had caused in the previous German government for inconsistencies. Federal Minister of justice Katarina Barley (SPD) said Wednesday after the vote: “I used the government internally, to ensure that the copyright Directive will be adopted without article 13.”

negotiators of the Parliament and the EU member States had agreed only last week to a draft of the copyright reform. He provides for, among other things, an ancillary copyright law for press publishers, as well as in article 13 – significantly more obligations on copyright protection for platforms like Youtube. Network activists had criticised the result of intense. Thus, the project is being implemented, must agree in the next week, the responsible Committee, as well as expected at the end of March, the plenary of the Parliament.

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Barley has, at least, doubts that the Parliament will agree to the compromise. “I see the possibility that the Directive presented at the end due to the ongoing discussions about article 13 in the EU-Parliament does not get a majority.” She stressed that the Reform of copyright law long overdue. This should not however be at the expense of freedom of expression. “These concerns must be taken into account.”

on Monday, opponents of the Reform had handed over its own information, according to a Petition with more than 4.7 million signatures in Barley. In it they criticize, among other things, the so-called Upload-Filter, with platforms such as Youtube when you Upload it can check, whether images, Videos or music are protected by copyright. The coalition agreement between the CDU and the SPD rejects the Filters, the obligatory use of Upload-as “disproportionate”. Critics demanded that the Federal government, the compromise, to agree to dealer.

Ultimately, five States voted on Wednesday against the agreement, as several diplomats of the dpa said: the Netherlands, Poland, Luxembourg, Finland and Italy. Slovenia and Belgium abstained, the other 21 countries voted for the compromise with the Parliament.

copyright is invalid, you are now allowed to free “Happy Birthday” singing, DPA, Youtube and co. could Upload controversial-Filter

in addition to the introduction of the Performance rights, the agreement of the past week also takes platforms such as Youtube more. After that, you must company in the future its best efforts to prevent copyright infringement. Protected works must be licensed before they land on the platforms – or even not be uploaded. Critics believe that you would use for Upload-Filter. This could not recognize legal content, such as quotes or parodies in your assessment, but – and mistakenly blocking. This crop of freedom of expression.

The power protection law and news engines like Google News for Displaying article snippets will have to pay money to the publishers. The German publishing industry had welcomed the compromise explicitly. The Reform had been proposed for 2016 by the European Commission and is intended to adapt copyright to the digital age.